Time to catch up on my mail. Thank you to everyone who writes with questions and column ideas – I appreciate you! I have space for only one letter today, so I chose one that reflects a problem many readers have asked about.

A reader who signs himself “Need Help” writes he was told to resign or be fired after lasting a year with a boss who “did not speak to me much except when I was being yelled at during our weekly management meeting” – this after 18 years of good performance reviews with previous employers.

He asks, “How do I answer the question ‘why I left my previous employer’ in interviews and on applications? I have stated I left ‘to pursue other opportunities’ on my last application and the interviewer said the statement was vague, since I was still looking in the same field. I think he wanted to call me a liar. What kind of responses can I give without giving off negativity about my experiences on my previous job?”

Need Help is experiencing a classic job-search dilemma: If you tell the truth, the interviewer might reject you. If you don’t tell the truth, you might be caught. Worse yet, you could tell a half-truth badly, leaving the interviewer to assume the worst. This is what happened to Need Help.

Several tips come to mind for this situation. One is to remember that if you’ve gotten to the interview, you’ve already passed major hurdles. At this stage, the interviewer wants and hopes to hire you. An inconvenient truth, to borrow a phrase, won’t matter nearly as much as the suspicion that someone is lying. In other words, the interview is the time to put the story out there.

To do this, the job seeker needs to remember that harmful information is best delivered without extra detail. The more detail you give, the longer the story gets and the more time the interviewer spends thinking about you leaving the last job instead of how he or she wants to hire you for this job.

One possible answer to the interviewer above would be: ” ‘Pursuing other opportunities’ was just a way to say I left my job voluntarily. The full story is that my boss and I didn’t get along very well. He has a very hands-off management style, which is not a bad fit for me, but I was in over my head and needed more direction than he was willing to give. We finally decided I should move on, and I’m glad I did. I had had 18 years of successful work before I took this last job, and I’m looking forward to building that kind of success with a new employer.”

That may sound like a long answer, but it actually takes only 20 seconds or so to deliver. Notice there’s no apology, nothing that would reflect badly on the previous boss. Which brings me to the next tip: Never speak poorly of an earlier employer. Not only is it tacky, but it will backfire: While you’re discussing the boss’ negative attributes, words like “whiner” or “troublemaker” are springing to mind for the interviewer.

The final tip? Where possible, Need Help should avoid the application process. Although the application led to an interview in this case, they frequently don’t. The odds grow slimmer when the application features gaps in employment or long periods since the last job.

To avoid the application, follow a two-pronged strategy. First, never seek an application. Since your real goal is to get an interview, ask for the interview instead.

Second, use your resume in every possible interaction with potential employers. Craft this document to highlight your skills and accomplishments and downplay your soft spots, whatever they may be. If this is difficult for you, hire a service or have someone you trust help you. It’s worth the investment of time and money to get this step right, as the resume offers you a chance to “spin” your story.

Speaking of applications and other distressing job-search issues, what do you think about the computerized application kiosks many big-box retailers use in their stores? I’m not fond of them for a number of reasons, but it occurs to me that someone must like them. Write and tell me your experiences so that I can get a better handle on the value of this tool.

Thank you!

Amy Lindgren owns a career-consulting firm in St. Paul. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecareerservice.com

Amy Lindgren owns a career consulting firm in St. Paul and writes a weekly column for the Pioneer Press.

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